At least 25 people have been killed in three separate bombings in Baghdad over the last 24 hours, it was reported today.The news came as officials reported the most violent month in Iraq since the US-led 2003 invasion, with a sharp increase in the number of roadside bombings.At least four people were killed in a car bomb attack on a market in the Shia-controlled Sadr City suburb at around midday today.Yesterday, eight died in a bomb attack on a queue of people looking for work in the Iraqi capital's central Nahda district, and 13 others were killed in simultaneous car bomb attacks at dusk.Sectarian violence in Iraq is growing as Shia and Sunni Muslim groups vie for supremacy in a country where a Sunni minority has traditionally held power over the Shia majority.... http://www.guardian.co.uk

Two car bombs exploded Thursday in Baghdad, killing 10 people and injuring 16, officials said. Iraq's prime minister insisted the country's forces were ready to take over security duties in most provinces despite rising violence. Also Thursday, U.S. officials confirmed that the number of roadside bombs directed against U.S. and Iraqi forces increased sharply last month, dramatizing the threat posed by the Sunni-led insurgency despite attention directed to sectarian violence in the capital. The parked car exploded a little after noon near a market in Sadr City, Baghdad's biggest Shiite neighborhood, damaging many shops besides inflicting the casualties, said police Lt. Adil Salih. Residents said the casualties were low because most people had finished their shopping early to escape the 120 degrees Fahrenheit heat that was forecast for Baghdad on Thursday. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/24/iraq/main541815.shtml?source=RSS&attr=World_541815

A former American school teacher said publicly Thursday that he was with JonBenet Ramsey when she died in what he called "an accident," a stunning admission after a decade without answers in the 6-year-old girl's murder. But the suspect's ex-wife said she was with him in Alabama at the time of JonBenet's 1996 death.John Mark Karr, 41, will be taken within the week to Colorado, where he will face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault, Ann Hurst of the Department of Homeland Security told a news conference in Bangkok."I was with JonBenet when she died," Karr told reporters afterward, visibly nervous and stuttering. "Her death was an accident."Asked if he was innocent of the crime, Karr said: "No."...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/17/ap/national/mainD8JI77GG0.shtml

The United States intends to move very quickly in early September to impose U.N. sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its enrichment of uranium, a senior State Department official said Thursday."They will be well-deserved," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told reporters. "It's not a mystery to the Iranians what is going to happen."The U.N. Security Council already has said Iran faced sanctions if it did not suspend uranium enrichment, a key step in making nuclear weapons.Iran has until the end of the month to respond officially. It also had said it would reply by Tuesday to a proposal by the United States and the European Union for concessions that include U.S. supply of some civilian nuclear energy....http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-08-17-iran-sanctions_x.htm?csp=34

A Harvard review has found that a dentistry professor did not commit research misconduct while looking into potential links between fluoride in drinking water and a rare form of bone cancer. The Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, filed an ethics complaint against Chester Douglass, a professor of oral health policy and epidemiology at Harvard's School of Dental Medicine, in 2005, claiming he downplayed research that showed an increased risk of the bone cancer osteosarcoma for boys who drink fluoridated tap water. An inquiry panel and the Standing Committee on Faculty Conduct at Harvard, both made up of senior faculty, conducted reviews of Douglass. They concluded he "did not intentionally omit, misrepresent or suppress research findings," the Harvard Medical School and School of Dental Medicine said in a news release Tuesday. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2324553

A volcanic eruption in Ecuador's Andes mountains killed at least one person and left more than 60 others missing, the mayor of a village on the volcano's slope said Thursday. One man's body was recovered after the overnight eruption of lava from Tungurahua, in the country's high Andes, Penipe Mayor Juan Salazar said. "There are another four who we believe are caught under the rubble," Salazar told Channel 4 television. "There are 60 other people who are on the high flanks of the volcano whom we could not get to this morning." ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2324502